Supercharger belt help

[CobraTampa]

So like many others before, I’m dealing with a very annoying supercharger belt chirp/squeak. Noise goes away after about 15 minutes or so but until then it’s loud and it pisses me off. It’s not a pulley as they all spin with no noise or binding.

I hear some great things about the gator back belts but can’t find the one for my car. I have all stock pulleys and am looking for a stock sized gatorback. Can anybody direct me to the belt I need???


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[01yellercobra]

Continental makes a gatorback style belt. For the life of me I can't remember what it's called though. I ran it on my eaton set up.

You might just need a new belt. Also how old is the tensioner?

 

[CobraTampa]

The belt is only about 8 months old. I don’t know the brand because when I bought it in Feb, I took it to my local shop and had them do a complete tune up with included putting fresh belts.


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[CobraTampa]

Continental makes a gatorback style belt. For the life of me I can't remember what it's called though. I ran it on my eaton set up.

You might just need a new belt. Also how old is the tensioner?

It’s the continental elite I think. Just can’t find the right model and who sells it.


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[biminiLX]

The belt is only about 8 months old. I don’t know the brand because when I bought it in Feb, I took it to my local shop and had them do a complete tune up with included putting fresh belts.


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Take it back to them?
I run gates green HD belts.
-J

 

[olympic]

Stock alternator and tensioner? A lot of belt squeak issues are caused by pulley misalignment. They make a laser tool for checking this but you can use some 1/2" wide flat iron as a straight edge across the crank pulley to get an idea if one of them is not aligned.

 

[MG0h3]

Easier way to check firm it’s just what belt is dribble some water on it while running.

Sounds like you know it’s the belt. Try flipping it. If the words and numbers are facing you, flip it so they are backwards.


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[CobraBob]

The Gates Green HD belts are really good, and very popular.

 

[P49Y-CY]

silicone spray (along the flat side of the belt) worked for me. also flipping it like mgoh3 suggested

 

[01yellercobra]

Unpopular opinion ahead.....

The Gates green belts are awesome, for what they're designed for which is to last 100K miles on a fleet vehicle. Because of this they're designed to be stiff and the rubber isn't as soft as normal belt. It was that stiffness that got everyone to like them because they could crank down the tension for blower pullies that really were too small without worrying about the belt stretching or breaking. I've used them in the past because I had the same mind set. But I tore up a set of main bearings because I ran a tight belt. This isn't an issue really with the stock cage, but something to think about with aftermarket lowers with no support.

IMO a properly set up pulley system shouldn't need a ton of tension and should work with a standard belt. If something more is needed then look into the grip pullies and RPM belts instead of cranking up the tension. I managed to get an F1A to work without slip with just a Thumprr tensioner and going with bigger pullies to hit the target boost. My current set up has the Roush 3V tensioner and a basic Gates belt. I think it was the $20 one from Amazon. I went with it to see how close I was in size with plans to swap it out for an RPM belt eventually. It's still holding fine with the stock lower and 3.25 upper. I might go one size smaller soon just because I'm getting close to the end of the adjustment on the Whipple aux idler.

FWIW, I'm currently running a Gates green belt on my truck because I don't want to deal swapping it again for a long time.

 

[CobraTampa]

Thanks for all the replies peeps. I managed to find an 8 rib 75” gatorback on Fleebay for about $40. I’ll see if that works.

Also with my motor at 150k mileage, I’m not looking to put any pulleys on at this time. I had a compression test done and I have one cylinder at 115. More boost will lead to a quicker death. Lol

All I want to to get rid of the loud embarrassing squealing.


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[railroad]

Load test your battery. High load on alternator trying to bring your battery up to full charge, then quits chirping.

 

[CobraTampa]

Load test your battery. High load on alternator trying to bring your battery up to full charge, then quits chirping.

Checked the battery....all good there. I'm hoping it's just a cheapy belt they put on. It was quiet for the first few months but has gotten worse.

 

[mysticsvt]

Still running stock idlers? If so man replace them ASAP.
This was my lower idler, killed my belt, nicked my 4lb lower and left me stranded and car on the side of the road for 3 hours.